The 50 Greatest Chicago Moments: Part 3
July 12, 1979: A 24-year-old DJ, Steve Dahl, organizes a promotional event to sell some White Sox tickets -- only 98 cents if you show up with one disco record to be blown up at center field between games. More than 65,000 people mob the ballpark and storm the field, chanting, "Disco sucks!" Even Harry Caray singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" could not restore order, and the White Sox had to forfeit the second game. Disco, on the other hand, had to concede cultural defeat.
Spring 1923: Louis Armstrong, having relocated to Chicago the previous August, makes his first recordings as the trumpeter in King Oliver's jazz band.
Sept. 11, 1930: At the "Jubilee Meeting" during the annual National Baptist Convention held that year in Chicago, the first gospel songs are played for the crowds. The music was the creation of Thomas Dorsey, a former vaudeville pianist and blues singer, who two years later would refine the new music as choral director at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church.
May 1965: The State of Illinois charters the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, redefining jazz not only for Chicago but for the free-jazz world.
Feb. 15, 1967: Six guys (Danny Seraphine, Terry Kath, Robert Lamm, Walt Parazaider, Lee Loughnane and James Pankow) meet in a North Side apartment and decide to form a band. They named it Chicago Transit Authority, and later -- just Chicago.
1960s through 1990s: The Sundowners hold court as the house band at the Loop's historic Bar R-R Ranch, establishing a minimalist Western music style that would be the foundation of the '90s alt-country trend nurtured by Chicago's Bloodshot Records and the Hideout club.
April 24, 1969: Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield serve as sidemen to Chicago's Muddy Waters in the Super Cosmic Joy-Scout Jamboree concert at the Auditorium Theatre -- a clear passing of the blues torch from one generation to the next, resulting in the album "Fathers and Sons."
Summer 1986: Three Chicago dance records (Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's "Love Can't Turn Around," Raze's "Jack the Groove" and Steve "Silk" Hurley's "Jack Your Body") hit the top 10 in Europe, birthing the house music craze.
Aug. 12, 1993: The Smashing Pumpkins launch their hit alt-rock record "Siamese Dream" with a three-night stand at Metro.
Feb. 18, 2004: Kanye West's "College Dropout" CD debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard chart -- second only to, as he joked a few nights earlier during his House of Blues performance, "some artist I've never heard of" (Norah Jones).
